When Welcome Wagon International Inc. and Getting to Know You merged in 1998, the combined corporation dropped its traditional door-to-door visits to newcomers' homes, opting for greetings through the mail and the Internet.

Suzanne Meyer, a local Welcome Wagon sales rep from 1995 to 1998, considered the new strategy shortsighted.

"I didn't want to lose the personal interaction with newcomers," she says.

With the support of about 15 advertisers she had worked with at Welcome Wagon, Meyer left the company and struck out on her own, convinced that a hands-on meet-and-greet strategy could still pay off.

It has.

Meyer's Mooresville-based company, the Welcome Committee, has built a modest but growing business during the past six years, establishing a stable of advertisers that range from Kritter Kare and Savvy Salon & Day Spa to Staples and Merrill Lynch.

Revenue totaled $100,000 last year, and Meyer expects that to double this year.

Much of the company's growth has come through geographic expansion. After focusing initially on northern Mecklenburg and southern Iredell counties, Meyer has extended the Welcome Committee's service area to include parts of Cabarrus, Catawba, Gaston and Lincoln counties. And she hopes to expand the operation into south Charlotte, as well as Union County's Waxhaw and Weddington areas, by winter.

With those moves, her 14-employee operation would add six to 10 workers.

That doesn't mean Meyer is pursuing expansion merely for the sake of growth.

"I want us to focus on quality, not quantity," she says.

Meanwhile, the Welcome Committee also has broadened its advertiser base to more than 60 companies and increased its visits to newcomers' homes to 300 per month.

The Welcome Committee offers newcomers a complimentary promotional advertising basket, filled with coupons, brochures and samples of a range of products. "We're a matchmaker and introduction service," Meyer says.

The company targets its services -- and its advertisers' messages -- to newcomers who've moved into homes costing $200,000 to $2 million or more.

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